There ought to be some prophetic voice, a voice that would command an audience that would repeat a well-worn statement: Mankind needs to know how to solve problems. Weeks passed during 2008 when analysts of Wall Street decided that the world’s greatest financial crisis, since the Great Depression of nearly eighty years earlier, would not see turn-a-round in the economy until confidence returns to the people as buyers/consumers, and affluent persons/institutions as investors. Nearly all citizens, no matter what status in society, were afraid, so floundered with debt, and others would not risk hoarded wealth. Problem solving is one of the great human privileges. God introduced it to Adam, both in word and deed. He instructed the first couple to dress the garden and know it. (This reference is repeated often in these Pages as a primary and continuing command.) They were given instructions to work and gain education. It would be up to them to use their gifts of perception, intelligence, order, and strength, so to make of the Garden what mankind wished to make of it. The resources were given. God offered solutions when, finding man lonely, he provided a mate. When they needed clothing, God clothed them. There are systems for finding solutions within mortal boundaries. Problems can be solved.
Mankind is distracted by greed, jealousy, arrogance, selfishness, prejudice, secondary matters, unfair competition, and by other factors that Scripture lumps together as sin. We seem reluctant to learn by history, perhaps permitting situations to decline because of inadvertent contempt for some of life. Contradictions are common. One group argues against suburbs and in favor of cities. The other group argues for suburbs as superior to cities. One group argues for open conduct on choices relative to sexual conduct, drugs, gambling, and various distractions. The other argues for prohibitions. The liberal and conservative conflicts have become ugly, so distracting society. As a lad in the 1930s I knew a Mr. Jenkins who lost his job in Akron, Ohio, during the depression, because he voted for the wrong candidates. (Situations became so ugly that revealing voting records of individuals was made illegal.) In 2008, a number of persons in California lost their jobs because it was reported that they supported a proposition that prohibited same-sex marriages. A group of persons supporting the President-elect introduced a bitter controversy over the choice of the new president to have an evangelical and eminent Christian offer prayer at the inauguration in January, 2009. It is likely that a number of precedent clergy were of genuine biblical persuasion, so there was no violation in American tradition to have another. Unneeded tensions, contrived controversies, shallow assumptions, selfish partisanships, lead to failure to address and solve the social problems of nations.
Solutions will not come without God or some assumption that if there were a God this is what he would want accomplished for human good. God is generous to mankind in common grace. His concerns are not related to the form of government, but to the value system that guides it, and faithfulness in executing the ethical (righteous) standard. Although I believe with all my being in the Christian faith, I also believe that, if I did not believe in God, given what is offered by the world of power brokers, I would assume a holy God, and live by what God would be like in helping to solve man’s repetitive problems. God does give common grace in the world to help us solve problems. Given our tendency to competition even in idea exchanges we can only despair in gaining some solutions. Nevertheless, God would have us, especially his people, try for them. The purpose of God is faithfulness, in decisions that assist life and society. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020